ABSTRACT
The erotic is the very creative stuff of life and is inextricably linked to passion. It is a maverick, capable of the unexpected, and is the therapeutic momentum in analysis. The erotic transference has been left to the mar gins of analysis, never quite making it to the acceptable family of ideas in psychoanalytic theory and practice. This chapter proposes that the erotic is primarily psychological and not physical, although it is usually considered in terms of sexual excitement. The erotic tends towards individualization, promoting autonomy and radical evaluations of one’s life. The chapter provides both the idea of love and sex into the unifying concept of Eros. Psychotherapy is an erotic relationship between the analyst and patient: a transaction between two psyches that have the erotic at their centre. The essential nature of the erotic is that it is psychological and sometimes finds expression in the physical.
